One day, at the hour for such things, Anthony found himself in a snug corner of a near-by ale house; quite by chance the affable clerk, Griggs, who had also come in for a snack, was seated beside him. Griggs seemed quite put out of countenance by the weather.
"The ice in the river," said he, "is so thick that the whole population seems skating on it of a night. Access to the Jerseys is very easy now; carts are going to and fro by the dozens; and venison and wild fowl are very cheap. But when will an anchor be lifted? When will another ship get up, to discharge her merchandise? They say the ice is solid all the way to New Castle."
"And yet," said Anthony, "you must have seen many a winter that was as bad."
Griggs nodded. He was of that comfortable temper that loves reminiscence; and, then, his mug of ale was mulled to his liking, hot and delectable, and smelling of ginger, a drink well suited to keeping the winter out of the system.
"The last winter Clinton's men held the city was a cold one," said he. "You are too young to recall it. Their big ships of war were so thick with ice that it looked as though they were to be cased in it forever. I try not to speak ill of any one," said the affable clerk, "but those men of Clinton's were a loutish lot; such guzzlers of malt liquor you never saw. You'd thought, from the way they acted, that a plain man such as myself hadn't so much as a mouth on him. In the spring, when the ice had gone, they left; and glad enough we were to see their backs. Your grandfather was one of the first to come tearing into the city afterwards; they'd driven him out two years before, and he'd carried on what business he could from Baltimore, New London, and other places. I sat in this very bar, with a mug of this selfsame ale in my hand, and saw him go by on a fine roan horse. In a fortnight those of his ships that were left were running in and out, around the capes, under the very noses of the blockaders. He was a forthright man, was old Mr. Stevens."
"Was it after that time that you came into his employ?" asked Anthony.
"Oh, no," said Griggs. "Before. In fact, Tom Horn and myself have almost grown up in Rufus Stevens' Sons. I was a boy, keeping tally on the docks, when your grandfather was still master of one of Brownlow's ships; an Indiaman, she was. And when he began to adventure for himself he selected me to be clerk in his counting-room. And very proud I was of it."
"Have you always been stationed in the city?"
"Always, except for a few times when I went in a schooner to Havana, or one of the islands, to see to some small matter."
"I understand the house is one that's always been quite steady—that there's been few ups and downs."